Avi Fox-Rosen / Irena Klepfisz
Di rayze aheym / The journey home

Irena Klepfisz is a legendary poet and Yiddishist. Born in the Warsaw Ghetto, she has been an activist, a teacher, a mentor, and a poet all her life. In 1983, on the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, she and her mother returned to Poland for the first time since their emigration to America. The cycle of poems is a moving elegy to memory and the need to remember. The cycle begins by the window: "She looks out the window / all is present." It ends with the journey home:

      Do

here
ot do

      right here
muz zi lebn
      she must live

Ire zikhroynes
      her memories
      will become monuments
ire zikhroynes
will cast shadows

Composer Avi Fox-Rosen has set the cycle of poems to music, creating a unique art song accompaniment to the words. Last Saturday night, Avi, Irena, and a wonderful band gathered at "Jalopy," a small Brooklyn theatre, to present the cycle to the public. The wonderful singer/accordion player Ira Khonen Temple opened. I have noted elsewhere that he is one of my favorite performers, and one especially aware of words, punning, rhyming words in Yiddish and English; and of the power of song to move us to political action.

Now, Avi introduced the project. Irena would read a poem, and then, successively, they ran through the poems: Irena reading, the band performing these exquisite settings. For this cycle of poems, that was perfect. The recitation, followed by the music—breath-takingly beautful—provided the perfect setting for contemplating the words, letting them sift through one's consciousness. The poems consist of both English and Yiddish, and touch gently, kindly upon the journey in time, space back to Poland; world as it was, as it is, people, times remembered; and in the end, dreaming, remembering, the need to remember. It is an extraordinary cycle commemorating the experience of living through the Holocaust, remembering, and transmitting; and the unsettled world in which this continues.

The band on stage was the same as made the recording. Their familiarity with the material and being in sync with each other was obvious. To end the concert, the band played Dovid Edelshtat's "Arbeter froyen" (as translated by Dan Kahn and adapted by Avi) and one of Adrienne Cooper's favorites, "a gute vokh," (a good week). It was an extraordinary evening. This recording captures that performance (or perhaps more true, the performance was true to the recording). It is an extraordinary cycle. Beautiful music, and space to hear an extraordinary poet's words in rare depth.

Reviewed by Ari Davidow, 2-June 2026 .

Songlist

1. Poem Recitation 1 0:30
2. Der fentster—The window 3:01/li>
3. Poem Recitation 2 0:48
4. Vider a mol—Once again 4:00
5. Poem Recitation 3 0:28
6. Zi flit—She flies 3:05
7. Poem Recitation 4 0:33
8. A beys oylem—A cemetery 3:42
9. Poem Recitation 5 0:35
10. Kashes—Questions 2:37
11. Poem Recitation 6 0:46
12. Zi shemt zikh—She is ashamed 2:46
13. Poem Recitation 7 0:34
14. In der fremd—Among strangers 3:51
15. Poem Recitation 8 0:36
16. Di tsung—The tongue 4:12
17. Poem Recitation 9 0:39
18. Di rayze aheym—The journey home 3:00

All poems by Irena Klepfisz; music by Avi Fox-Rosen

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